Sometimes You Just Need a Box of Chicken

This past weekend, in The Wall Street Journal Weekend, in the Off Duty section, there was a page about Atlanta, under the "Adventure & Travel" heading. The bottom of the page is given over to people living in the featured area, and there was Cee Lo Green, Richard Blais from "Top Chef: All-Stars", designer Kay Douglass, and Kathryn Stockett, who wrote The Help. All gave their favorite places in Atlanta, and I loved Stockett's second-from-the-last pick in her column:

"Poultry Excuse: Kroger. I get my fried chicken--and much of my writing material--at the location in Brookwood Square. It will blow your mind--the chicken, the divorces. I once heard a pregnant woman tell her husband it wasn't his baby. He went right ahead and ordered an eight-piece box. 1745 Peachtree St. N.E., kroger.com"

Bettie Page's Banana Stand

Yesterday, after a long day that took us from one corner of this valley to another, including a stop at Moon Wok, the Bible of Chinese Food here, we went to Trader Joe's. Mom and Meridith went to PETCO next door first, but Dad and I went right to Trader Joe's.

No matter how much Trader Joe's disappoints me by what they take away (I still miss the microwave-in-bag spanish rice), I will never tire of this place. Not the free samples, not the pre-made salads that keep rising in price, not the frozen section with its always reliable supply of meatless corn dogs (which I like a lot better than regular corn dogs). And brother, if you want to get a look at more attractive female fare in this valley, go to Trader Joe's. A plumper behind is always appreciated.

That wasn't even the most interesting part of this long overdue shopping trip. At the banana stand, there were three employees there pulling the ripened bananas from the shelf below and putting them on top of the green bananas already stacked, because there were boxes on carts with new green bananas to be placed on that shelf below.

There was one employee working on this who was particularly fascinating. She had modest tattoos on her left and right upper arms, a tight dark shirt, and deep black hair. Maybe it was the eyeliner that did it, or her entire head, but she looked like a serious contender for a Bettie Page look-alike contest.

And no, I didn't stand there while choosing what bananas I wanted, imagining her in one of Bettie's outfits while she stacked bananas. Ok, I did.

And lest you think that was all that visit to Trader Joe's meant to me (It was 80%), I did quite well in gathering what I hadn't seen in so long, including my favorite chunky olive and edamame hummuses, a huge freakin' grapefruit, those meatless corn dogs, and more veggie burgers.

SAT Test Dream: Part None

Not one moment in a dream last night to continue what I hoped would be a recurring dream. Not an appearance by her, not any time, nothing. I did find myself in yet another theme park, which is helpful, since one of my (so far) two novels takes place during a day at a theme park, but I was disappointed.

SAT Test Dream

The last time I had what could maybe be considered a recurring dream was when I had a series of dreams involving the same theme: A girlfriend. This led to what I did not know would happen, that I began dating Irene in 7th grade, right on the day of the Valentine's Day Dance, yes, that February 14th. This was in 1997, so it shows that I'm beginning to age gracefully toward my 30s.

I wish that the dream I had through the night from late last night on would become a recurring dream. I loved it, because of the fun and the boisterous spirit in it.

I was in some kind of testing hall for the SATs. I don't know why. I was sitting at one of the desks, wondering why I was even there, because I was 27, and there is no way the SATs would benefit me in any way at my age. Not that they did anyway, because I took them in 12th grade, and that was that. I didn't use it on a college application, didn't have to apply it to anything else I pursued, and I sure as hell didn't need it to get a book published. I'm not sure if I will when I seek a publisher for my next book, but I hope not, because I don't remember what I scored, but I'll bet anything that I did a lot better on the English section than the Math section.

In this dream, I didn't decide to become an annoyance, but it just happened. I was playing with some blue goo on the desk, spreading it around, even while the papers were there. I don't know why the desks were so close, and there were no partitions between the desks to prevent cheating, which I did, though not because I needed answers. Apparently, I didn't care.

There was a girl sitting to my left. I didn't get her name. She didn't need a name. She needed an excited description, a celebratory exclamation, a shout, a yell, a fist pump coupled with "YES!!!!!!" She had such a vast, happy spirit that I find so attractive in any woman. I think she was a latina, and what was also most attractive is that she made extra weight look good. Yeah, she was heavy, but in a way that accentuates all the right places. And she was so much fun. She had the same opinion I did about the SATs, but she was a few years younger than me. Legal, of course, but I'm not sure what her reason was for being there. Maybe she hadn't taken the SATs in high school and thought to do it now as a lark. Maybe it was required for something she wanted to do, even being in her early 20s. I don't know. The one thing I was absolutely certain of is that I wanted her. I wanted to run around the world with her without needing any kind of transport, or waterskis, or anything that would make a speedy trip. I figured we could just float on the wind and let it remain underfoot as we ran.

The test began, and I didn't bother to take it seriously. I looked around, I fiddled with the goo some more, I played with a few small toys I had on the desk. And then I looked over at the answers of the girl to my left, and the person to my right. And I was caught, and told to leave the testing hall. But I wasn't leaving the building without her. So I waited the few hours that it took for the testing to be complete. And she came out, and I was overjoyed to see her again, and so was she, and she rushed me over to her house. She wanted to introduce me to her entire family.

I thought she had such a dominant, boisterous spirit. I could see where she got it from. Her father was such a good-natured guy, incredible at a stove, constantly creating culinary masterpieces. He joshed me a bit, looking stern at one point, asking what my intentions were with his daughter, then bursting out laughing. He said he knew as soon as I walked in that he could trust me. There was nothing sticky there.

Her siblings were great, too. I didn't get as much from them as I did the father, but they seemed like they were comfortable with me, too.

And she, well, at one point, she wrapped her arms around my neck from behind, and put her head on my left shoulder, watching her father cook. The feeling from that alone was enough to make me hope that this dream continues tonight or some day soon. I know that I would also like that feeling in real life. That is pure happiness. I believe it is the one time that gravity would allow me to ignore its laws and just shake and shimmy with joy in mid-air.

The Wall Street Journal Weekend

Ever since that Saturday in January mostly spent at the Fairmont Hotel in Newport Beach (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/01/ghosts-grow-larger.html), I've been hooked on The Wall Street Journal Weekend.

It started with free copies I found of it and The New York Times on a table near a pricey breakfast buffet just off the lobby. I took both to the pool, and sat a few rows behind poolside with my sister on plush burgundy pool chairs, and while she opened up "Sundays at Tiffany's" by James Patterson, I began reading both papers.

I liked that while most newspapers report the news breathlessly, in anticipation of it changing in the hours that follow your reading of it, this one seemed calm about everything, taking in all the facts in measured consideration. I don't remember the headlines on that day, but just like the Weekend edition I have today (I went to the newsstand early this morning when my dad had to bring the PT Cruiser to the repair place that's attached to the Kmart building, but not affiliated with it), the facts are all here, laid out smoothly for you to pull from it whatever you want, whatever your beliefs are.

It's the latter sections that make this newspaper one that I absolutely have to get every Saturday. In the "Off Duty" section, which is usually the last section unless there's an issue of Wall Street Journal Magazine included (It's mostly high-gloss fashion stuff), on that January morning, there was an entire page devoted to sandwiches and many of the different kinds, including po boys, along with insights from chefs about what they consider a great sandwich. And then, in the "Review" section that's before "Off Duty", there were book reviews, more book reviews than I usually find in other newspapers. And long ones, too, not just snippets within a column, although there is that as well.

Today's Weekend edition keeps up the same of what I've always expected every time I buy it. There's an above-the-fold article about the budget cut passed by the GOP, financial troubles at Bank of America, and below the fold is where you can find that which you won't find often in other papers. There's a long interview with a former stock market inside trader, and below that, a profile of a bus museum that did not catch on with the public, and it ends with the passion that Jim Lehrer of "NewsHour" on PBS has for buses, including owning one himself.

The Business & Finance section is hit-or-miss for me every week. I usually just skim through it, since while business can have drama for some in numbers, there's not much for me in it. That was pretty much what it was this week, except for an article about Angela Leong, fourth wife to Stanley Ho, a Hong Kong casino magnate, gaining control of a $1.2 billion dollar interest in his casino holdings and therefore his company for six years. There's bits of family drama in that article, and you wonder about the stories within that family, beyond what's been reported, what the conflict is like, especially with all that money at stake.

This week's Review section has the standard Joe Queenan column, this time about him tracing his ancestry and reporting it as only he can in his own wonderfully twisted take.

They have space within Review for a column called "Creating", and they profile people who, well, create things. Today is about whiskey distiller Chris Morris at Brown-Forman. I don't drink, but I like learning as much as I can about everything.

I haven't gotten to the "Off Duty" section yet, which encompasses (according to the strip below the name) "cooking, eating, style, fashion, design, decorating, adventure, travel, gear, gadgets." (There's dots between the words.) I know right off that the article on heels won't interest me, but looking below that, way below the fold, there's "Fresh Takes on Eggs - Four recipes from top chefs" on D5. That's definitely for me.

I like to try to read The Wall Street Journal Weekend each Saturday because I can devote as much time to it as it takes me to read nearly everything. Of course, that depends on when we go out, and when I get the paper, because I don't read it in the car. I don't like to shuffle a paper around in there. I got lucky this morning because I was able to get the paper far earlier than I usually do, and read almost all of the front section at the car repair place, and then skimmed through Business & Finance and got through about half of the Review section at home.

This was in the paper last week, and it's here this week too, a glossy sheet of paper advertising a subscription to The Wall Street Journal Weekend, which I would like. 52 weeks for $52 sounds ok, but the delivery time bothers me. I remember reading on the website for the daily edition that they'd deliver between 3 and 5 a.m., and being that we have two dogs and a front-door walkway gate that squeaks, no way. It's not worth saving $1.20 for the dogs to bark like hell at that hour and wake everyone up. Besides, sometimes at the newsstand, I come upon magazines I want to read, such as the latest issue of Ute Reader, which I would love to work for, as they read alternative press magazines, hundreds of them it would seem, and compile the best articles into each issue. Since I read every day, that would be the job for me, since it doesn't require reviews to be written afterward that would be published. I was a film critic. That's enough as a critic for an entire lifetime.

I remember when I was a kid how reliable Saturday morning cartoons were. Or rather, for me, Saturday morning programming, since the only cartoon I remember watching every single Saturday was "Garfield & Friends." I was also devoted to the "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers", and made sure to tape "Beakman's World", since I was still at my Saturday morning bowling league at Don Carter Lanes in Tamarac by noon.

I like that I have something on Saturday now that's just as reliable, and just as enjoyable. The same pleasure I felt for Saturday morning television is here, too, for The Wall Street Journal Weekend. Yes, a newspaper. I refuse to throw myself into the permanent technological rush hour that has so thoroughly dominated this country. I don't need to know everything that's going on in the world every single minute. I'm fine with getting my news occasionally, but I also require some thoughtfulness from it and that's what I get every Saturday.

A Better Bond

Last night, while reading "Moonraker", I wondered why I liked it a lot more than "Live and Let Die", which I had read before it, going as chronologically as I can, at least with the Fleming books, since I decided to start on the Bond novels by John Gardner at the same time.

I finished it this morning, and I know why. It's because "Moonraker" is as compact as "Casino Royale." The card game that Bond joins to expose Sir Hugo Drax as a cheat at M's request is brilliant in its detail not only of the Blades club, but how Bond sets out to defeat Drax, the methods he uses, the history of what he knows in card playing. It's also interesting to see M differently here. He's usually the boss behind the desk, but here he spends time with Bond at this club.

Plus, Drax ties right into the rest of the story, so Bond doesn't have to travel far this time, getting special permission from Her Majesty's government to operate inside England, which is never the case, as MI6's Special Service (the "00" agents) operates outside of England, around the world, with no jurisdiction within England's borders.

But I know that I liked "Moonraker" because unlike "Live and Let Die", there's no interminable pages involving train travel. The only benefit for me were the descriptions of parts of Florida, and I always love to learn about the history of my home state. But all that time with Solitaire, who's as weak as Jane Seymour's Solitaire in "Live and Let Die"? It takes too long, and the excitement of Bond going after Mr. Big fades for a time because of those pages.

Gala Brand, the woman in this novel, isn't as interesting or really as mysterious as Vesper Lynd in "Casino Royale", but she is as strong as Bond in mind and skill, so it feels like an equal team at least. And the end of "Moonraker", which smashes all of Bond's assumptions about Brand and underscores why he can't have that particular world in which Brand exists as long as he remains 007, is shattering in its cold simplicity. It is indeed a cold world for Bond when he's not being that dashing, skilled agent.

Next is "Diamonds are Forever", and I think the last time I tried to read all the Bond novels, back in 2002 when I was attending classes at Broward Community College at its campus in Pembroke Pines, and hanging out all the time in the Southwest Regional Library (part of the Broward library system) next door, I only got up to "Moonraker." And since I didn't like "Diamonds are Forever" as a Bond film, I hope for better from the original work.

Fun Easter Horrors!

Easter candy's a lot more fun than Halloween candy, as evidenced by the pastel-colored shells on Reese's peanut butter eggs, and that there seems to be a lot more good ideas for Easter candy than just the typical Halloween body parts, although I wonder how a put-your-own-Jesus-together chocolate body would sell. I do love the chocolate crosses, and I wonder if those would indeed ward off Satan if you hold it stiffly in front of you while shouting, "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!"

Or maybe Satan is a chocoholic, too, and then you've found a friend.

Nevertheless, I still want to see a zombie Easter bunny that eats children and then the eggs.